US demands trials of wrinkle therapy available in Britain

"GROW your own facelift." "Bigger than Botox." The headlines refer to a treatment for wrinkles and scars that involves growing someone's skin cells outside the body, then injecting them into their face.

Yet while regulators in the US are demanding trial results before approving the procedure, in Britain and other countries the treatment is already available. So are regulatory agencies in these countries looking closely enough into cellular therapies like this to guarantee patients' safety?

In the treatment, developed by Isolagen of Houston, Texas, skin cells from the back of the ear are grown in the lab for about 8 weeks, and then injected beneath frown lines and scars by a plastic surgeon. Isolagen claims that the implanted cells grow in the same way as ordinary skin cells and that, unlike collagen fillers or the nerve-paralysing toxin Botox, the effect does not wear off. In fact, it claims, the effects ...

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